Carnivals Parties Plans

15 May 2010

Today there was a carnival at Owen’s school. The carnival was held to raise funds to make scholarships available for the students enrolled in their Little Flyers class. Since that’s the class Owen is in, and since we can only afford Woodbury’$ pre$chool thank$ to a $cholar$hip, we felt it was incumbent upon us to attend and support.

Turns out, the boy likes playing with silly string. I don’t think we played any other game more than once, but we played the silly string game three times. It was, I believe, my first exposure to silly string in about 30 years. At a store with my mom one time, she bought me a bottle of silly string with Spiderman on it (get it? – it’s like you’re shooting out web-building threads!). She thought it was a bottle of bubbles, but it wasn’t.

Anyway, the first time we went to battle it out with silly string, I handed the lady six tickets (=$3.00) to play. The sign said it was six tickets, but I asked her if it was six tickets per play or six tickets per person. She graciously allowed me to go into the square and battle it out with my son without having to pay 12 tickets. Then we played again, and she only charged us six tickets that time, too.

But when we went to play again, there was a different woman collecting the tickets, and when I handed her six tickets, she insisted I give her another six to pay for me. I found this a little frustrating: it’s pretty much impossible to play for six tickets, since you need two people to play. I felt the sign should have said “12 tickets”. But I figured I shouldn’t complain; after all, I’d just played for free twice. Turns out, though, I didn’t have six tickets left, so I just went into the square unarmed and let Owen spray me with silly string.

Later, I saw some silly string for sale at Target for $3 a can, which means that there must not have been a whole lot of funds being raised when Owen and I were playing silly string.

16 May 2010

Today was Owen’s birthday party. For the first time, his party was not held at our home. Instead, it was at his grandparents’ house. The weather was perfect – neither too hot nor too cold. There was a slight breeze blowing, which kept the bugs away, but it also meant we couldn’t light the candles outside. No problem; we just brought the cake inside for that. Later, I tried to fly a kite, but the wind wasn’t strong enough for that.

In my last post, I mentioned that gift-giving is not (or, should not be) the most important part of a birthday celebration. Once again, Owen got a lot of presents. What’s funny is that everyone (his parents included) seems to feel the need to give more than one item. No one, it seems, gives a kid “just a coloring book” for their birthday. They buy the child a coloring book, plus crayons, plus a paint set, and a chalk board. So, you know, the tally rises quickly even with few invitees.

My favorite presents – though I’m sure this opinion would be hotly contended by Owen – were the clothes and cash he received. I’m trying to maintain and increase a college fund for Owen, so just about any cash he receives goes into his piggy bank. I have his money in a special account through our credit union. It has a higher interest rate than normal savings accounts, but I can only add to it once a year. So all year I throw money into his porcelain pig and, around Xmas, I deposit it. So, today, my wife twice showed Owen the money he got from some friends. He looked at it quickly, didn’t say anything, then quickly moved on to the cool presents.

The thing is, I totally understand why people don’t usually give a kid cash: it’s a boring gift to give, and (for a kid) it’s a boring gift to receive. Same thing with clothes. I remember one day when I was about 8 years old, my mom and I were driving to a friend’s house. On the way, my mom said, “I think she has some things for you.” I was excited the whole time – wow! Presents! Cool! Turns out, it was a bag of clothing that her son had outgrown. Boring.

I think that’s the moment that you become an adult: When you start thinking that clothes and cash are the best things people can give you.

17 May 2010

All is right with the Universe once more. It’s been a busy month so far, and a busy week. I’ve had something written on may calendar every day for the past eight days. Besides Owen’s birthday and finals’ week at our colleges, I’ve had to fit in the aforementioned carnival, a visit to the dentist, a day at the Minnesota Chromatography Forum, and reading my short story at the Fulcrum release party.

Now that the semester is over, I have about two months to finish some projects. This includes finishing work on a sundial I was making for Owen. I’m also halfway done with five videos – and I’d like to get all of them completed soon. I have an idea, too, for another video which, so far, is only in my head, but I’d like to get it created. There are six half-finished essays I’m working on that I’d like to submit to various newsletters and magazines. And then there’s the books I want to read. These include:

–The Little House on the Prairie series. I kid you not. My aunt Jodi bought me the complete set of books when I was a kid, and I never read them; eventually I sold them at a garage sale. This past Xmas, I bought them for us as kind of a family gift and, now that my wife and I are watching each episode from the TV show, I figure it’s a good time to finally read those books.

-The Bone series. Remember that should-we-ban-these-books? hearing that I went to? Well, these were the books they were walking about.

–Lies Across America. After attending James Loewen’s presentation a couple of months ago, I was reminded what a great writer he is. In response to his lecture, I bought this book and have been chipping away at it. Now I plan to finish it.

I’ve still never read London’s Call of the Wild and Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. I’d like to give them a try and see what the big deal is. Maybe I’ll fit those in, too, before the new baby comes in ~60 days.